


Bad End {Stumbling Down the Eightfold Path}

by Our_Brightest_Stars



Category: Mystic Messenger (Video Game)
Genre: Bad Ending, Don't Examine This Too Closely, F/M, Please Don't Hate Me, Suffering, all of them - Freeform, apologies in advance, each chapter is a new bad route, i ruin lives, no one is safe, please don't kill me for this either, some character death
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-10-21
Updated: 2016-10-21
Packaged: 2018-08-23 20:53:08
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,734
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8342302
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Our_Brightest_Stars/pseuds/Our_Brightest_Stars
Summary: Not all fairy tales end happily ever after -  {it was a painful journey to enlightenment}- sometimes it only ends in tears.





	

Min-jin rested on Rika’s _(and now her)_ couch upside down, taking her time to answer carefully to an email when a notification popped up to let her know that Seven was currently in the chat room. Feeling a little excited by this, she sat up straight and brought her legs down and off the back of the couch to sit cross-legged, saving what she had written so far before entering the chatroom herself.

**707: Hey, Min-jin, have you eaten yet?**

_Me: No, not yet. I might get some chips tho_

**707: I hope you don’t eat too many snacks lol  
** **707: I recommend snacks to people like me and Yoosung**  
 **707: who are stupid or lost or have no reason to live. lol**

Eyes widening, the brunette impulsively threw her phone away from her, only to flinch when it hit the wall and and slammed onto the floor with a plastic thud. Her hand covered her mouth, feeling ill. The phone buzzed frantically, like a swarm of bees urgently trying to leave a hive that had just been struck.

Seven could see Min-jin clearly from his cameras, the couch being one of the few things visible from the apartment’s narrow hallway. He cursed himself for being too honest, ruining the mood again. _Why couldn’t he say anything right? Next time, just say that she should take care of herself and eat healthy, instead of making it about_ him _and drag down the mood…_ Fuck, he needed to fix this. 

_(crack a joke, distract her from the problem comment, sidestep it all until it got dismissed or forgotten)_

He needed this. He **needed** her friendship _(because there was no way such a radiant person like her, so_ lively _and_ wonderful _, would ever seek to be more than a sympathetic friend he could occasionally joke with)._

Because he remembered; he remembered how she would always fall in love with one of the others.

_(not with him, never with him)_

Because he was her wing-man, her best friend, and it would always stay that way, remain safely that way. 

Because he couldn’t bare the idea of making a single mistake that might push her away, could never live with himself if that were to happen.

_(because if it did, he would make the next reset happen himself)_

**[one way or another]**

He watched her pace, tug at her long hair and worry her lip in anxiety. She wasn’t responding to the notifications. He could clearly see the phone vibrating on the floor…

“I ruined it,” he muttered to himself. “Why did I have to write that? Why do I _always_ have to do that…?!”

Seven’s heart thundered in his chest when she finally turned her head towards the device, blood rushing through his ears in a panic, sure that his worst fears were about to happen. That she would tell him that she couldn’t do it anymore, or that he made her uncomfortable.

He prayed for her to dismiss it; he wasn’t as religious as he made himself out to be and knew that he could always, _always_ do _so_ much better than he was right now _(sometimes he wondered if he was already in some form of hell)_ , but he _did_ still believe, did still hope that there was God out there and his suffering wasn’t pointless.

 _(because if his suffering meant that_ she _could be happy, he would welcome the worst of pain, the worst of loneliness, the worst of his nighterrors, of his flashbacks and triggers, of his intense need for_ someone _to fill the emptiness before he could finally cave in on himself and become nothing and cease to exist… because at least_ she _would still be there. Waiting for him once everything started all over again. Always there, always_ bright _and_ pure _and_ **untouched** _from everything the RFA was and the shadow that followed it)_

**[he was always so grateful for each reset, because that meant he had time to get to know a different side of her before someone claimed her heart]**

**[he was always so angry for each reset, because the torment would begin again, he could never try to move on or find someone else, because it was only** him **who remembered and whatever relationship he tried to start would never last]**

Something wet fell on his hand, startling him from his self-loathing. He gingerly felt his face; tears. Removing his glasses, he furiously scrubbed at his face to get rid of them, cursing quietly under his breath in reproach. His phone buzzed. A song began to play:

_Every morning I wake up to the same sweet sound~ Picking up my cell phone that’s been ringing~_

Swallow hard to get his voice under control, he scrabbled to pick it up and answering loudly to hide the fact that it wavered, “Hello! This is the Defender of Justice Seven-Zero-Seven! State your wish and it will be granted, my fair Princess~!”

_“Luciel.”_

The grin he had conjured for the character he had to act as, slipped. It slipped and melted away into frown, because this wasn’t part of the script. She wasn’t supposed to call him _that_.

_“Luciel, count the things that make you happy.”_

“…What?”

 _“Count the things,”_ she repeated patiently. _“That make you happy.”_

Seven let out a nervous laugh, “I don’t think that would mean much, Jagi, most of the things I like are pretty ridiculous and-”

 _“So what?”_ She interrupted. _“They make you happy, so they matter, regardless of how silly you’re worried they might be. So, count them.”_

“I… Okay,” he acquiesced. “I like Elizabeth Third. I like my cars. I like Doctor Pepper, and Honey Buddha Chips, and those baked fish pastries.”

_“Uh-huh.”_

“I like playing computer games and going on long drives to no where in particular. I like going fishing with Zen, teasing Yoosung, and giving Jaehee and Jumin a hard time.”

_“What else do you like?”_

“I like to travel, especially when V takes me with sometimes to take pictures of me. I like dresses and putting on makeup sometimes.”

_“You look really beautiful when you do, you know?”_

“…”

She sighed, _“What else makes you happy, Luciel?”_

“…”

_“…Luciel?”_

“I like my ringtone for you,” he finally admitted in a whisper, blood pumping in his ears loudly.

He laughed. Voice nearly hysterical from the close brush at admitted everything.

“See, Jagiya~? I told you, lots of little things, nothing important!”

 _“I think they are,”_ Min-jin finally said after several long seconds passed, her voice a little rough. She cleared her throat. _“They might not be goals or world-saving-missions for the Defender of Justice… But isn’t it those ‘little things’ that make everything better? I think your happiness is reason enough to get up in the morning everyday… And if I’m honest,_ **you are one of the things that make me happy.** ”

He couldn’t breathe, throat clenching and nose tingling, vision blurry. “Min… Min-jin, I…”

He could say it.

He could say it now.

If there was _ever_ a time where he could utter _those words_ , it would **be right now.**

_“Luciel?”_

Say it.

_“Luciel? Are you okay?”_

He had to say it! Say something before it was too late!

_“Luciel.”_

Say something.

_“Luciel.”_

**He had to-**

_“Luc-”_

**-say-**

_“-iel?”_

**-it!**

“I…”

_“Yes?”_

“If I didn’t know any better, I would have thought you fell in love with me, Princess~” Seven forced out an obnoxious laugh, his mind blank and body numb. He felt nothing. There was nothing. “Careful there, don’t want to give a guy the wrong idea!”

 _“Seven!”_ Min-jin scolded with a groan.

“Really got you going didn’t I? Look, look, it’s fine, I’m fine, and it is waaay past your bedtime. What is it? Two forty-six in the morning?”

_“I, uh, yeah, but-”_

“Look, let’s sleep on this, I’ll see you in the morning!”

_“Lu-”_

“Seven-Zero-Seven, out!" He immediately pressed 'end’ before she could finish had threw the phone across the room before collapsing on the floor. Forcefully grabbing his hair tightly, and banging his head on his knees, he shook.

Chest trembling, lip shaking, breath catching and stuttering as he tried to hold it all inside, keep it together, keep it together, hold it all it, bottle it up, put it to side, it doesn’t hurt it _doesn’t hurt_ he’s fine _he’s fine_ it’s fine _fine **fine**_ **fine** -

_(there’s a sort of keening noise coming from his mouth, and it almost sounds inhuman, like something’s dying)_

The whine stutters and catches in his throat unable to get around the lump, and it sounds like his drowning and all he can do is hear his name: 

**[Luciel, Luciel, Luciel-]**

_…you’re one of the things that make me happy…_

**[…Seven!…]**

And then he can’t do it anymore.

He can’t hold back, he can’t hold it in, and he’s sobbing, _sobbing_ , _**sobbing**_.

His wails fill the room, tears and snot smearing on his jeans and his head grinds itself there and his fingers dig into each other as they hold his legs tightly to himself, desperately trying to keep what remains of him together.

It hurts, _it hurts so much._

It’s like there’s a weight on his chest slow crushing him.

Like there’s a blackhole where his heart should be, slowly sucking him in and making his body crumple in on itself to futilely fill the void, the hungry emptiness that would never go away now because-

because _because_ ** _because_ BECAUSE**

He gave her up. He didn’t tell her:

_"I like you.”_

_“You make me happy too.”_

_“I will have_ one _reason to live,_ as long as you’re around _.”_

**“Let’s be happy, together.”**

He threw it all away, _for her_.

Because someone so bright and shining, shouldn’t be tied down with heavy chains and a dead weight. 

_(because someone as selfish as him would never let her go otherwise; she would never be free again, if he did; he would kill them both otherwise, everything would be ruined, and there would be no more parties; no more second chances)_

He was her best friend.

**And that’s all he would ever be.**

* * *

_(if only he had look up in prayer, then he would have seen her; he would have seen Min-jin crumpled on the floor of the hallway; he would have seen her crying and hurting just as he was)_

_(because she was his best friend)_

_**(and that was all she would ever be)** _


End file.
